A guide to check in on your team’s happiness

A note to team leaders and managers before we start

Before trying this with your team, ensure you’re in a comfortable enough space with the team to discuss these topics. Feel free to ask your manager and team beforehand to understand if they’re ready for this discussion. No need to rush this. Listen to your team.

How are we really doing?

When teams talk about how they’re doing at work, the conversation generally leans towards development retrospectives, projects, changes in the org, or upcoming work. But how often do teams check in on how happy they are with what they’re doing, why they’re doing it, and what would help improve the situation?

Depending on the autonomy a team feels it has, the trust given to it by leadership, and the personalities in the group this might be a difficult conversation to get people engaged in. Some may feel powerless in speaking about their happiness if they feel things can’t change. Others may find that it’s a very personal and sensitive topic – which it is! So, how can you bring it up without catching people off-guard?

Credit where it’s due

Before we get into this, I want to give credit to the source of the process that I’ll be building this guide from: Nomad8’s Happiness Histogram retrospective. This is not a sponsored post. In my time at Riot Games as a development manager, this process was brought up by a fellow DM, so I gave it a try – with a twist!

To clarify on the source: If anyone knows the original creator of this process, I’d be happy to give them clear credit here. Nomad8’s website is simply where I was pointed towards to learn more.

Enter the retro

There’s a great time in a team’s development cycle where they should be ready to talk about what’s going well, what isn’t, and how things could be improved. It’s the retrospective. You don’t have to adopt an agile development methodology to do this as it’s simply a conversation a team has in order to find ways to continuously improve.

However, as the intro stated these conversations generally lean towards development practices, project details, and change management. What’s left it is how people are feeling, and for a good reason. Personal feelings are difficult to share, can cause unintended harm towards others, and create friction among the team. It can also do the opposite and bring the team together, create a support structure, and ultimately – nurture a safe space to share our needs as individuals and teams.

This has to be approached delicately. The original process was used to point out whether teams needed to make changes to their retrospective meetings. I’ve adjusted a few bits to shift the focus towards the following and expanded it to help teams check-in on their happiness as well as see its change over time.

The process

1. Clear the room of any misconceptions around what the topic is. You’re trying something new out so start with an explanation of the process and offer time for Q&A.
2. Intro description: “I’d like to try out a happiness histogram today for our retrospective. It shifts the normal conversation from our development and projects to how we’re doing as individuals so we can get a better sense of our team health. Topics can include how you’re doing on the team, within the company, and as a member of your discipline. (Critical) The goal is not to try to optimize for everyone being as happy as possible. I’d love the exercise to help everyone, but that may not mean you’re happier afterwards. This should simply provide us with a snapshot of how we’re doing.”
   1. This is where you as a leader and listener can check with the team on topics they don’t want included in the conversation. Some teams keep home life out of the discussion while others know each other outside of work and may feel fine digging into such topics. It’s up to you and your team to lay those barriers. Be kind and listen with an open mind here and try to find the best common denominator that ensures safety for all individuals. Example starters below:
      1. “What are some topics we want to take off the table? The focus is to keep this a safe space to discuss without creating any sort of pain for anyone.”
      2. “You don’t have to talk about anything that you’re not comfortable sharing – even if it’s the biggest impact to your happiness. This is a safe space.”
      3. “We’ll do this a few times over the next year if we like this so feel free to share a bit today to see how you feel and you can offer more/ less next time based on the value you get from the exercise.”
3. Q&A: “Any questions?” I’ll list some tough ones and example answers I’d give.
   1. “Why are we doing this?”
      1. “Retrospectives are about continuous improvement. We often focus on our projects and development, but spending 40 hours with each other every week we also have an opportunity to make the experience a positive one for each other. That’s why we’re talking about happiness today.”
      2. “How we’re doing impacts what we’re doing. If we’re not in a great spot mentally, it’s good to sometimes talk about it so we can support each other along the way.”
   2. “Do I have to talk about this right now?”
      1. “Not at all. If you don’t feel comfortable sharing this time around, feel free to listen and observe others as they go through it. We’ll give this a try a few more times this year so you’ll have more opportunities to share”.
      2. “If the majority of the team gives this a try and we simply don’t feel it, let’s call it out and we can adapt it to our needs.”
   3. “Can I have more time to think outside of the meeting?”
      1. “Absolutely! Feel free to share what you can today and edit your notes after with more context or additional info. This is for the team to have as a source of information.”
   4. “This seems personal – should we be sharing this info out loud?”
      1. “It can definitely get personal. Please only share what you’re comfortable with. No need to dig into topics that you’re not comfortable discussing with the team.”
4. Ground rules: After the intro and Q&A, you’ll likely have a few ground rules from the team. Write them in a space where everyone can see it. Examples below:
   1. Notes from the meeting should be in a team-only space in Confluence, Google Drive, MS OneDrive, etc.
   2. No finger-pointing or personal attacks towards others – keep it to how you are feeling.
   3. Only share topics you’re comfortable discussing with the team.
   4. Do not try to fix other’s problems – listen to their asks instead.
5. The histogram (finally, right?): This is where most blog posts will give you a nice visual of a chart with an x and y axis and post-its. This isn’t a core part of this process. It’s writing down your thoughts, sharing, and asking for support. Sometimes not having a visual helps people feel safer in case they’re an outlier.
   1. Ask everyone to grab a sticky note or index care depending on whether you’re putting these up on a wall or keeping them to yourselves.
   2. Write down your happiness score between 1-5 with 5 being as happy as you can be. You can work with your team on the range and what each number stands for. Listen to the team.
   3. Under the happiness score, there should be two bullets: one listing what’s driving your happiness up and the other listing what’s driving it down. Try to explain what is happening with context so you’re not calling out names or pointing fingers.
   4. Finally, write a statement of what support you need from the team. (Critical) This is a piece of context you’ll want to share as the facilitator to keep this exercise safe: “This is not a therapy session. The team shouldn’t be jumping into the discussion expecting to solve each others’ problems. The focus is to listen to each person’s notes afterwards and their ask for support and simply digest it. Clarifying questions can be asked, but should only be for the purpose of better understanding the ask for help.
   5. Read your card aloud. Share what you feel comfortable sharing. Stop at any point you feel uncomfortable. You can simply read the score, bullets, and ask for support and leave it at that or open up for any clarifying questions on your ask for support.
6. Closing and what’s next: Thank the team for sharing. Let them know that you can revisit this exercise whenever they want. I’ve found that doing this quarterly can help with larger teams. Listen to your team. Let people keep their cards if they want or keep them in a private team area.

The results

Try to avoid any deep analysis on this exercise. The point is to continuously improve in retrospectives and many people look for action items when leaving these meetings, but this is one where you can give everyone an action item of simply taking time to digest the discussion and let things sink in. The process should create a nice histogram of happiness across the team over time and create a safer space for people to talk to each other as human beings. That’s it. Don’t try to game it. Listen to your team.

Listen to your team

You’ve read this a few times throughout this post right? There’s value for you here leader, manager, or individual contributor. The value is learning to listen to your team. Throughout this exercise the team go ta chance to have a voice, share their thoughts, ask for support and simply be heard. That’s a huge accomplishment and can easily be forgotten as a core need of an individual. There’s no need to try to fix things in this exercise. Just listen.

And as always, GL HF!

Bonus content!

The reason I haven’t posted in a while is my family moved to Stockholm, Sweden 😀

I’ll share more once my new job gets going, but until then enjoy this wonderful gif of our new home city.